Chapter 20 #2
The rusted springs underneath the faded protective padding groaned when I hopped my ass onto them.
From there, I could see the party. People I had gone to school with, drinking and laughing.
All of them stuck in Dayton and not seeming to mind.
Like they’d accepted their fate and settled with it.
Zepp had. Hendrix had. Tipping my drink back, I wondered how the hell I’d manage if I ended up back here in this shithole, living, if I was lucky enough, paycheck to paycheck.
Another sip, and I lay back on the still-warm-from-the-long-gone-Alabama-sun trampoline, staring up at the night sky through the thicket of pine trees overhead.
Peace. My dad said all a man needed in his life was peace, and it was easy enough to think about the peace money could bring.
Get a degree. Get drafted and…peace. But some part of me was starting to think that maybe there was more to that serenity than cash.
“Money can’t buy happiness, but poverty can’t buy anything.”
A burst of laughter drifted from the party, and I turned my head in the direction of the porch. No one here had a pot to piss in, and yet, when I looked at them crowded together, swaying in beat with the music and smiling…they seemed happy.
I had been happy here. Happiest with Jade.
That thought snuck in without permission, and damn if it didn’t make my drunk mind wander.
If I got myself straightened out and got drafted, what were the possibilities?
A house in The Hills, a Lamborghini parked up front.
First class to Tahiti, Paris—places I’d never heard of…
Money could buy all of that pre-packaged, forced-down-your-throat happiness.
Until last week, I’d believed that would be enough to make me happy.
Now, the only person I saw in that house, those cars, the airplane seat beside me, was Jade.
Take her out of the equation, and well—another swig of beer—it didn’t seem so damn happy.
Just lonely. Like I was right then. Like, if I were being honest, I had been since I’d lost her.
I thought about Jade, sitting alone in her room after her parents had gone to bed. I wondered how her dad was.
She’d never blocked me, hadn’t cut me out, which made me feel like less of a pussy when I took my phone and shot off a text, asking her what she was doing.
Watching the news
Why the fuck are you watching the news?
Dad still refuses to pay for cable. It’s this or Married With Children.
For as long as I could remember, Jade’s house only had five channels on the TV. My dad wasn’t rich, but we’d even had cable.
I typed out How’s your dad , deleted it, typed it out again, then made myself press send.
He’s okay. How is the party?
Okay never meant okay. I knew that, but I took the hint. She didn’t want to talk about it.
Boring as fuck.
Hendrix hasn’t serenaded you and forever ruined a childhood song yet?
Thankfully, no.
Tell him I said he’s losing his touch.
I stared at that thread, ignoring the party on the porch and warring with myself long enough to finish my beer.
We’d both avoided each other for the past few days, which was probably why the ride to Dayton felt tense.
We’d driven most of the way in silence, every once in a while Jade commenting on my “crap taste” in music.
The more I’d thought about it, the more guilty I felt for stopping her the other night.
Not because I shouldn’t have, but because I knew her well enough to know I’d hurt her feelings.
I figured she’d taken it as some kind of rejection.
That whole drive, I’d tried to find some way to bring it up but failed.
I worried that if I let it, this would be the thing that irreversibly fucked up any possibility of… Of what? I didn’t even know what I wanted. What I needed. That was a lie; I’d needed Jade since the first time I’d kissed her.
Want to get out for a bit?
Bubbles danced across the screen, then stopped, then started again.
Thanks, but I’m about to go to bed.
Or maybe she wasn’t upset that I’d stopped her. Maybe she was upset that anything had happened to begin with. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a shadow approaching.
“Hey, Wolf.” Nora stepped into the light coming from the house behind Hendrix’s. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and she had on the same yellow sundress she wore to most parties back in high school.
I hadn’t seen her in months, but laying eyes on her didn’t stir a damn thing inside of me. Not like it did every time I looked at Jade.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming into town.” She stopped in front of the trampoline, clutching a Solo cup to her chest.
We still talked. We’d been friends before we dated, and when I’d ended things with her, it wasn’t a fight.
Wasn’t full of fuck yous or hatred. I told her the truth—that I wasn’t in a place to give her what she wanted or deserved.
It wasn’t her fault that I’d tried to use her to get over Jade, and it didn’t seem right to cut her off.
“Yeah. Last-minute decision.”
She handed her beer to me, then climbed onto the trampoline beside me. “How’s school been?”
“All right. How’s work?”
“It’s work.” She shrugged. “Boring.” She stared at me through the dark for a second. “Why aren’t you at the game?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” She sat in silence for a moment, swinging her feet over the edge. “You know, ever since I’ve started work, I don’t really talk to anyone anymore.”
“What about Frank?”
“Fred? We broke up.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
She sniffed a few times. “It’s okay. He wasn’t good for me anyway. At least that’s what Dad said.”
Just like Jade’s dad had said about me. She must have glanced down at my phone screen still open on mine and Jade’s WhatsApp thread because she asked how Jade was.
“Good,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” God, this was awkward.
I’d never been so grateful to hear the war cry Hendrix let out from the back deck. Any time he did that, a fight usually ensued. “To the death, Star Wars Kyle!” he shouted.
I glanced across the dark yard. Hendrix wielded the plastic flamingo like a sword while Kyle—the scrawny guy he’d wanted to kill in high school because he had thought Lola was dating him—stood stock still a few feet in front of him. “Come on, Kyle. Come to the dark side.”
Lola stepped between them, took the flamingo, and whacked Hendrix’s stomach with it. “Just take the damn picture, Hendrix.”
A group of them lined up. Hendrix snatched Carl back from Lola and raised him above his head before a flash went off. After the group split up, Hendrix’s attention drifted to us. “Well, well, well…” he staggered through the tall grass. “If it isn’t Snora Nora.”
“God…” she mumbled.
He stopped in front of us, stabbing Carl into the ground. “Is Nora the Explorer trying to find out what’s in your sack, Wolf?”
“Shut up, dickhead.”
Sighing, Nora shoved off the trampoline. “I’m going to go refill my beer.”
Hendrix watched her leave. “I brought you an offering of girls, and you just want to rotate through your exes…”
“I’m not rotating through shit.”
“Lies.” He snatched up the flamingo, mumbling something about pimp penalties as he wandered back to the porch.
Half an hour later, everyone at the party was shitfaced.
Carl had been tea-bagged more times than I could count, and I was bored out of my mind.
I opened mine and Jade’s chat. She was still online.
Wondering if she was talking to Brent, I pocketed my phone, grabbed a case of beer from the fridge, and snuck outside without telling anyone I was leaving.
The noise of the party faded as I made my way toward Jade’s house, zigzagging through the rundown neighborhood.
The Anderson house had always been the only one on the street without faded paint and a weed-littered lawn.
Most likely because they were one of the only couples in the neighborhood without a drug problem…
The only light on in the single-story house was Jade’s room.
I crossed the dark lawn, placing the beer by the flowerbed before I tapped on her window.
Her shadow appeared behind the thin curtain, and she peeked out from the corner before shoving the drapes to the side and cracking the window.
The warm glow of her lamp highlighted the confused crease in her brow. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“Went for a walk and saw your light on…”
“You went for a walk…in Dayton?” Her brows lifted. “That party must have r eally sucked.”
She was right. I hadn’t gone for a walk. I had walked here . To her. But I would never admit that.
Searching for a change of subject, my gaze shifted over her shoulder to her bed, the sheets still made. I nodded toward it. “Having trouble sleeping?”
She followed my gaze. “Yeah. I always do when I come home.”
Because when shit is in a person’s face, it makes it harder to ignore. “I was thinking of walking over to The Lookout…”
“Oh, I see. You’ve developed a penchant for late-night Dayton strolls and getting mugged?”
I fought a smile. “If you’re worried about me getting shanked by a crackhead, maybe you should come protect me.” Like Jade would be any help.
Her teeth worked over her bottom lip for a second, indecision playing on her face. “Give me five minutes?” Then she closed the window.
Nerves bunched my gut as I headed toward the curb to wait.
Not because I was nervous to be around her but because things had been weird since the hay barn.
I still needed to figure out some way to explain that but had no idea how.
The front door creaked open, and Jade stepped outside, her hair tied up in a messy bun.
The oversized hoodie she had on—the same one she’d worn the first time I kissed her—nearly reached the bottom of her denim shorts.
Seriously, the girl could make anything look hot.